Nedim Şener Acceptance Speech

CPJ International
Press Freedom Award 2013. November 26, 2013. Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue,
New York City

As prepared for
delivery

Respected ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues:

Thank you for this award, which I accept in memory of my colleague
Hrant Dink--a good man and a good journalist.

Hrant Dink was threatened by state officials because he had
exercised his freedom of expression. He was murdered because state officials turned
a blind eye to threats against him and failed to protect his life.

When police took me from my home on March 3, 2011, I left with
this motto on my lips: "For Hrant, for Justice!" I spent 376 days in prison,
but the strength of that motto never faded. And now, when I'm thousands of
miles away from home, I am repeating it again--"For Hrant, for Justice!"

The officials who took me from my home that day are part of
the apparatus complicit in Hrant's murder. The government has protected those
officials. Because I exposed their complicity and named the police and
intelligence officers responsible for Hrant's killing, I was tried as a terrorist.
It was those same officers whose involvement in the crime I had exposed who
decided my fate.

The whole Turkish judicial system became party to this
injustice. I was released after a full year behind bars with no verdict against
me. I am still on trial and can be imprisoned for 15 more years. This is how
Turkish justice works--instead of bringing journalist killers to trial, journalists
are tried as terrorists.

When authorities jailed me, they wanted to destroy the truth
I had exposed. But the truth cannot be destroyed or imprisoned. Once it is
revealed, it cannot be buried again.

We journalists disagree with politicians on the meaning of
democracy. For politicians, democracy means allowing people to vote every four
years. For journalists, democracy is an everyday experience. And the essence of
that experience is the people's right to be informed. It is no coincidence that
the first act of an authoritarian government is to silence the press.

Today, it is harder than ever for governments to keep
information concealed. We have never had more communication tools at our
disposal. Journalists can gain access to the most secret of truths no matter
how hard authorities try to hide them. At the same time, journalists have never
faced more attacks than they do today. We risk assassination, abduction,
prosecution, imprisonment, and exile--all for doing our job, and doing it well.

Tonight, we remember our colleagues who were abducted,
killed, and imprisoned while on duty. Tonight, we remember Ghislaine Dupont and
Claude Verlon, who were abducted and murdered in Mali last month. We remember
Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik, who were killed in Syria. We remember Bashar
Kaddumi, who went to Syria on assignment. His wife and children did not hear
from him for two years. We remember the dozens of journalists in jail in Iran,
China, Eritrea, and in my country, Turkey.

Turkey is a record-breaker. Sixty journalists are jailed there
on the accusation of being terrorists--that's more than anywhere else in the
world. Most recently, several colleagues received life terms after a trial that
shocked the Turkish press corps. I feel compelled to speak for them now. Don't
be indifferent to their fate! Demand their release!

The events of Gezi Park over the summer revealed the scope
of the press freedom crisis in my country. Thirty journalists were hurt, many
were detained, and dozens were fired from their jobs because of their Gezi
coverage. But perhaps the gravest problem was that many media outlets did not
cover Gezi. Even though dramatic clashes were taking place right outside their
windows, many newsrooms chose to self-censor for fear of official
repercussions.

There is a red line now that journalists in Turkey know not
to cross. The ones who do cross it pay a steep price, and we owe them a great
debt.

Enemies of free expression more than anything want to hear
the sound of our silence. They want to scare us, incarcerate us, and eliminate
us so we cannot speak the truths that we have uncovered. And so we must speak
at every opportunity. This is what Hrant Dink would have wanted.